Blue Corn Meal ( A New Year’s Folly)

(For Faolan, Daisy, Liam, and Thranduil, since only one of you knew their grandmother H)

This story starts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the summer. I think it was July, as this was before we started spending July 4th at my cousin’s Richard and Lois’ home in Pentwater, Michigan.

We’d gone fishing up at Red River, New Mexico, staying in one of my dad’s doctor friend’s cabin in the north meadow above Red River and right on the stream(ish) river. The cabin was huge but lacked TV and this was before VCRs. It had a telephone, and it was a party line, so you could pick it up and listen in to other people’s conversations. It was deep brown and was trimmed with turquoise shutters. The high peaked ceilings like the rest of the cabin were made of raw, glazed pine. Two huge candlestick pines framed the house, and it sat back from a dirt road. The road led north to a meadow and a beaver dam lake. A fork in the road led to an active, but antique gold mine. My understanding is that someone later packed the old mill up, and hauled it board by board to Houston, where it became a restaurant. There were lots of old mine shafts dotting the landscape up there, and this was before anyone thought to put steel bars over the shafts. We found one such mine opening, a huge cavern right off the road, and when we went in, there were beautiful quartz crystals in a maze across the ceiling. Well, my mother, being my mother, and a dedicated rock hound, decided to chip some of them loose. They had a greenish tinge that she thought came from a vein of copper running through the wall. About 8-10 feet back, you could see where there had been a mine fire as all the timbers holding up the ceiling were burned. The smell of a bear was also pungent. In case you don’t know, bears are stinky. There was also a deep hole where the open shaft was down into the mine. This roadside mine was also on the way to a field of old mining cabins, where you could walk around and go in them, as they were abandoned, along with the mine. One rainy, misty, and (insanely for July) snowy, day, my dad was convinced we saw a ghost. A group of cows had been grazing up near the cabins, but they wandered off into the woods. We were in the car, and a cowboy materialized out of the treeline. He rode over to the car, and asked my dad if he’d seen his herd of cows. Dad said he thought they’d gone off around the mining camp, and the cowboy tipped his hat…and disappeared. Personally, I thought I saw him ride back into the treeline, but Dad swore up and down the cowboy was dressed in clothing fitting for the 1800’s rather than the mid- 1970’s. I’m still not sure about that one, but my parents were freaked out, so…

Anyway, the cabin was designed to be a ski lodge for the doctor’s family and his guests. No one used it in the summer, so he was happy to let my dad go up and check on the property. Squatters were a problem as were summer storms with vicious lightning. A house could burn down in a matter of hours, and no one would know about it, or be able to fight the fire because of the remote location. The house wasn’t an A-frame design. It had a big front door, heavy with a screen on it, and same at the back by the kitchen. It also had a wide front elevated porch, which I decided was my stage. I took my 8 track tapes of Cheap Trick, and played to my imaginary Budokan audience with them. (So, this had to be 1978 or 1979, because I had Dream Police although we started coming up to the cabin in 1976 because I remember we had lunch at the Pink Adobe in Santa Fe. There used to be a photograph of us sitting outside on the patio, and my mother was wearing a centennial red, white, and blue handkerchief blouse. (it is probably in one of the storage units, in a glass frame, which used to hang in the kitchen of the house I grew up in on 70th street in Oklahoma. This is provided the heat has not destroyed it.)

Anyway, bears walked across the porch at night. There was a homemade zipline behind the house that went down the riverbank. Dangerous really but I loved it, and I had a couple of friends up there with me. (Angela, which damn near destroyed our friendship because there was really nothing to do but read, and she wasn’t a big reader. Tracy, who really wasn’t a friend…I’d call her a frenenemy now, she and her family came up. My dad was friends with her dad, for a while, before her father died) She was a bully, and mean to me most of the time when her parents weren’t looking. I tried to be nice because my dad and her dad were friends, but I was really happy the day we graduated high school because I didn’t have to deal with her unless I wanted to. I tried a couple of times after that, but she was still the same asshole, so I gave up after she got married and had kids. Anyway, one night when Tracy was there, a pack of coyotes came through and howled right under our windows. Tracy was so scared that she went crying hysterically to her parents. She was shaking so badly that the bed she was sitting on was vibrating.

They were loud, but I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was bad enough that they left the next day to drive home. I wonder to this day what the hell they were expecting? I think my dad and her dad got to go fishing in the river, but I don’t really remember. Nor do I care, as this story isn’t about Tracy, whom I’d always equated with Lucy on the Peanuts cartoons. This is a comment about the wildlife, and how close we were to nature. I remember watching the striped chipmunks run all over, and the blue columbine flowers that covered the riverbank, along with the indian paintbrush. I also remember the rainbow trout in the stream, and hiking back and forth between the cabin and the meadow in waders, carrying creels of fish, and other fishing gear. There were other cabins and homesites up around the meadow and further north as this was the dirt switchback track leading up to Wheeler Peak.

Anyway, it was on one of these sojourns that we picked up the container of blue cornmeal. It might have come from Questa, Taos, or Santa Fe. The fact is, it remained in mom’s kitchen for a while before she decided, one fateful New Year’s Eve to cook it into cornbread muffins. It is a southern tradition to have black-eyed peas and cornbread on New Year’s. Mom found it sitting, innocuously, in her kitchen and decided it would be fun to make blue cornbread. Keep in mind, it had been a few years since she bought it, as it was now at least 1982 and I’d moved from the Cheap Trick (1) phase (as opposed to the Cheap Trick 2 phase which is a different story) and into the AFOS phase. So, we all sat down to dinner of black-eyed peas, pork chops, spinach, and blue cornbread.

Long about ten-thirty, I got violently sick, and my dad who never threw up, bazooka barfed everywhere. My mother, who ate significantly less of the stuff, never the less, was puking to beat the band…and my mother could barf on command so this was serious. I remember laying on the couch at midnight, unable to lift my head, watching a live AFOS performance from somewhere, and wondering what the hell happened. I also remember my parents weakly calling to me from the backroom and wishing me a happy new year.

Not one of the more pleasant New Year’s celebrations I’ve ever had, and certainly not the worst. As I look back on it now, it strikes me as funny in an odd way. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and as a family, we became even tighter knit, just my mom, dad, and me.

So, what made us so sick? As it turns out, Dad asked around, and found out, by accident, that a lot of blue cornmeal mix had been recalled in New Mexico for pesticide contamination. Our symptoms were consistent with pesticide poisoning and as one of my dad’s friends’ remarked…we were lucky to have survived it. Mom threw the remaining container out, so there was no testing of it to make sure. But, I believe we survived because none of us really ate a whole lot of it. Traditionally, it is New Years Day that southerners eat black-eyed peas and cornbread, not New Year’s Eve. So, in saving the majority for the next day, my mother saved us. To this day, I look at blue cornmeal chips with trepidation and rehash this story with my husband. Oh, I will eat them, and in fact, like them because they have a different texture than regular restaurant-style chips. But, blue corn chips always brings back this memory to me, and what it was like growing up with my mom, dad, and me.

That Pertumit Garundi Thing Part 3

Behind me, a small flotilla of cleaning servitor bots floated along, mopping the floor.  I took one look at myself in the mirror in the medical refresher and winced.  My face was a massive bruise, and when I peeled out of the prison jumpsuit, my side wasn’t much better.  The water let me know where the rest of the injuries were, but at least I was able to get the chucksa out of my hair.

A soft chime alerted me that the water was going to shut off, so I found the towel and stepped out.  I scrubbed at my hair and hoped I still had a brush somewhere on the ship.  A bot delivered my clothing which smelled strongly of industrial disinfectant.  I yanked on my tunic, trousers, and boots.  All basic black, nothing to see here.  I braided my wet hair as best I could and stepped out of the fresher.

The alien holding my knives wasn’t one I’d encountered before.  It bowed to me and offered the case holding my identification, com unit, and knives like it were bestowing royal jewels.  I expected it to back away and leave but instead, it watched me as I strapped my belt around my waist.

Aware that Winter wasn’t exactly known for her patience, I tried to hurry but knife placement deserves privacy…something the alien wasn’t providing at the moment.

The creature must have sensed my discomfort. “My employer would like to offer you a small token of gratitude and a request.”

Its voice was oddly modulated and sibilant, like it, spoke through a vocoder.  I finished sliding the last of my knives into the sheath along my spine and I flipped my braid over the handle. 

“Your employer is…?” I faced the creature and still couldn’t discern much about it other than a small elephantine snout and gray skin. 

“A wealthy patron.  We would have approached you earlier but…”  The creature waved spindly gray fingers in the air.

“And yet here you are.  Talk fast.” I put my hands on my hips and waited.  I didn’t sense any animosity from the creature, only intense curiosity.

The creature bowed again.  “Our patron would like you to complete a dossier on your companion, the one who calls herself by many names.  Our employer wishes to know anything and everything you know about her and will pay you handsomely for it.  We ask that you think about it as there is no need to provide an answer now.  You will find that we have deposited a token of our patron’s gratitude into your shell account on Ualune.  You may use it as you see fit, and should you decline our offer, the money is still yours to keep.  We have also uploaded a list of questions to your ship account under a password-protected encode.  The password is Maeyris.  We thank you for your time.” 

I blinked and the creature had faded into nothingness. I could still feel it in the room, but it had managed to visually distort itself.  The doors opened from the outside and a security detail stood waiting.  The creature’s presence faded once the doors were open and I couldn’t risk it knowing I could feel it.  I could not sense its thoughts, but its life force was a glowing spot in my mind.  I was escorted back out to the lobby where Winter waited and I thought about telling her about the odd proposal.

Winter peeled herself off the wall and joined me in exiting the jail.  Fairlawn station was just beginning the dawn rotation.  I had to almost jog to keep up with Winter’s long strides.  We passed the food vendor stalls floating through the promenade and I felt my stomach rumble.

“Winter!”

She whirled around to look at me.  “Could we at least stop for a cup of tsai? My head is still pounding!”

She inclined her head and gestured with her arm for me to proceed her.  I walked along the promenade and chose the vendor that was still anchored to the deck. 

As soon as we were seated, the table encapsulated us in a clear bubble and rose from the deck.  We floated upward to the repulsor cart where an elderly human male tended various pots, pans, and ancient iron kettles.  He waved and pointed to the tabletop, where the holographic menu appeared. Winter slipped a device from the vest pocket of her flight suit and sat the tiny machine onto the table.  It chirped and an indicator light turned green on its side. 

“Now we can talk?” I glanced up at Winter who regarded me unblinkingly.

“We have a job if you want to do it.” She tapped the tabletop with a fingernail and ordered.  Two cups of steaming tsai appeared moments later.  “You want anything else?”

“You mean I can order actual food, and my stint in the constabulary  didn’t break us?”

Winter sat back and folded her arms.  “We have enough.”

I was starving despite my pounding headache.  I scanned through the menu and ordered ramen and kinpiyo, with a side of quinchee and krokettes.  “What’s the job?”

“Ah, this station’s premier casino is holding a card contest.  I’ve enough to cover the entry fee if you’re game.”

The delicious scent of the ramen wafted out through the delivery port.  I looked up to take my dishes and the old man waved at me from behind his red lanterns.

I pried the wrapper off the utensils with my teeth and broke the sticks apart. I tried to be discrete about rolling them between my palms so as not to insult the owner of the restaurant. 

“He’s not watching.” Winter waved at my food.

‘Maybe.”  I mumbled to her and dug into the spicy noodles.  After days on k-rations, the taste was heavenly. I stuffed several mouthfuls in before I realized Winter wasn’t eating.

I swallowed hard. “You aren’t eating.  Why?”

She tossed her head back and snorted. The motion caused the colorful tattoo across the base of her throat to be visible briefly.  “Don’t worry. I am not hungry.”

I lifted an eyebrow at her and she shrugged.  I let it go for the moment, but she had a habit of not eating regularly anyway.

“This job,” I said between mouthfuls, “ Ca we pull it off with just the two of us?”

Winter sipped her tsai.  “I think so, there’s nothing in the rule schedule that would prevent me from wearing a hood and halo.  Second place is more than enough credits to get us out of here and solvent for a while.

I nodded and polished off the rest of my food.  The name of the place is Miko’s and if you ever get to Fairlawn station, I’d recommend it.

When Darryl and Meriloo were with us, the gambling scam was easy for us.  Darryl would set herself up as a staked player in the game.  Meriloo would dress like a wealthy patron and be a distraction if needed.  Winter, because of her distinctive height and hair, would pose as a bodyguard.  Me…I’d vanish.  My glamor abilities let me disappear in the minds of everyone, with the exception of a few alien races.  When I came across other races with similar abilities, I admit to being curious.  Most of them, I knew or had at least heard of.  My gray friend from earlier?  I had no idea, but it hadn’t been the time to investigate either.  If you think I would let it go, you’d be wrong.  Time is a relative thing, so I have plenty of it to discover the identity of my benefactor and I will…eventually.

Anyway, all gambling halls are the same essentially.  The gig was easier with Darryl and Meriloo but more dangerous.  Most often, Darryl would get drunk and forget that she had to follow the measured stake in the game.  She’d over bet and sometimes our progress ended sooner than it should.  We had more than a few shouting matches with her over it.  Darryl laughed me off to my face and called Meriloo her “pet psychopath” which didn’t endear her to Meriloo.  Darryl would listen to Winter though. Honestly, I never understood the dynamic between them.  I did understand that they respected each other, especially each other’s fighting skills.

I don’t know.  Maybe you’ve heard about it, maybe not.  But, there is a Taverna legend about how Darryl and Winter met.  The short version of the story is they completely destroyed a drinking establishment in a drunken fistfight.  Having witnessed both of them in hand-to-hand brawls, I would say that Darryl’s advantage was sheer power.  Our “late” captain was a heavy worlder and came from the Yeltsen mining world of Kapros.  Humanoid Kaprosians, in case you’ve never met one, are short like me, but stockier in build.  They are muscular and exude an air of toughness, even when they aren’t doing anything particular.  They are quick-tempered, in general.  My father used to say that Kaprosians were elegant in their unique way.  I did not understand that remark until I met Darryl.  Darryl had a natural gift of athletic ability and stamina, which I guess would be useful in an asteroid mining colony.  She handled zero-gee better than anyone I have ever met, and my guess was that she was born in it.

Anyway, the first thing I did when I got to the casino was find a place to stash my gear. I found a loose ceiling seam in the women’s fresher above the largest humanoid stall and placed my makeup and a fingertip length case that held a dress.  I do own dresses, but they are not my preferred style,  Pants work better if you are running from something or are in a fight. So after that, I slipped in my ear com and concentrated on making myself and everything on my person disappear.  It is harder than it looks.  When I was young, I practiced the skill of making small things vanish, like the rings on my fingers and toes.  When I became proficient with that, I worked on making my clothing vanish.  It takes time and concentration to be able to hold a glamor.  Fortunately for me, I’ve been doing it long enough now that it is almost second nature and I can hold it almost without thinking. 

I glamoured myself and waited for someone to open the doors, and I did not have to wait long.  An elderly woman with an Astro staff and an aide running along behind her swept past and I darted out the automatic doors.  I agreed to meet Winter at the check-in next to the ballroom and I found her easily.  She was standing in line, hunched over and with her hair covered by her gray hood.  Most of the people around her were subdued in their dress.  It seems to be some kind of unwritten rule among serious gamblers not to stand out, although the closer you look to vagrant, the more likely you are to be escorted out by security.  I would call everyone in the line dressed in high-end hobo.  I look at their shoes or boots. The cleaner they are, the more of a mark the being is unless, of course, they sought out the services of the casino’s shoeshine boys.  Decorated boots meant greenhorn, somebody I categorized as wealthy and obvious about it.  In my observation, those were the folks that spent credits like fluid and were only competing for a good time.  They typically weren’t skilled players.  Bland, non-descript shoes or boots, meant the player was serious and might be a professional card player.  No boots, or claws, well, they were hard to judge unless the claws had a decoration of some kind or a sheath.  Then I would put them in the same category as the greenhorn.  Those beings with actual green horns I tried to keep clear of because no telling what the horn could sense. 

Winter got through the line with her number and strode down the hallway to the card salon.  She found her player chair and sat down to log her credits into the reader on the table.  Then she sat back and gave me a slight nod.

Winter is one of those races who I think can see through glamors.  There are so few of her kind left that I don’t honestly know.  In deep space, you hear stories about the mighty Hashtaaleen, the proud race from the Ebrak Seran section of space, and how their world was completely destroyed by the Bildarthians.  There are tales of refugee colonies, of slaver ships that took refugees into The Realm worlds, and how very few free Hastaaleen roam the spaceways, like specters in the great blackness.  I’ve never asked her if she can see me, I only assume that she can.  She turned her head in my direction, gave a slight nod, and then went back to gazing at her reader.  I took that as my cue to go read the room.

As Fairlawn casinos go, this one is on the elite and exclusive end. The color scheme is muted red with swirling carpets and gold accents with crystal singing sculptures everywhere. Wealthy beings from all over the known worlds, and The Realm drifted in and out like colorful avians, complete with feathered plumage.  Most of them stayed in the entertainment centers, food venues, or the main casino.  A few drifted into the salon to witness the player duels to come.  I spied a few that I’d seen vids on, wealthy patrons from the Realm, princelings, and rulers of half a dozen worlds.  There were others, more obvious to me because of their attempts to blend in.  But they were there, hiding in plain sight. 

The Eagles Nest (another Christmas tale)

A long time ago..in the early 70’s before the mall enclosed in 1982, Penn Square was an unusual mall. Wikipedia supplies me some information as my memory of the mall’s history is incorrect. However, I do remember that Montgomery Ward anchored the east side and John A Brown anchored the west. There was a very posh high end store across from JAB called Rothschild’s, I think.

Anyway, this story isn’t about the Mall. It is about a restaurant across from Ward’s called The Eagles Nest. Very high end expensive steak house where Dr. Starry, my father’s wealthy partner held court. I don’t remember much about my dad’s business partner except that he didn’t like children and advised my parents to send me to Hockaday Boarding School in Dallas.

My parents ignored him. They ignored his advice a lot, actually.

So, one Christmas, while shopping, my dad and I discovered that the Eagles Nest served all you can eat shrimp for 11.99 at lunchtime. Back in the 70’s, that was a fair amount of money, but worth it because of the volume.

We went there practically every Saturday for a couple of months. Dad even invited his Dr. pal Dr. Vogel to go with us. I think this might have been the first time dad invited him along. So, we feasted on all this shrimp. But, in bringing Dr.Vogel along, we unknowingly let the cat out of the bag. Dr. Vogel was well connected to Oklahoma City Society, consequently, the whole of the planet seemed to know. The place became so jammed that you actually needed a reservation.

We are there only once after the reservation system went into place and I remember it was around Christmas. The price went up and the portion was smaller. I know my dad was disappointed and I was too. Good deals don’t really last and we were lucky. I’m grateful for that deal and the memory of Christmas with my dad it’s given me. It’s why we have peel and eat shrimp around here on Christmas day.

It’s funny. You start thinking about your traditions and how they started. I can point to this one and say, this is why the peel and eat shrimp is important. It is connected to this event long long ago.

When they enclosed the mall the Eagles Nest moved to the top of Founder’s Tower and became part of a nightclub called Nikz. I performed there once.

They have since permanently closed and the building renovated to be condos I think.

Lots of restaurants in Oklahoma bear the name Eagles Nest. But for me there was only one. The one across from Ward’s circa 1978.

Of Stars and Moons: A Yule Memory.

Somewhere in my youth, I discovered the movie Bell, Book, and Candle with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. It was one of my mother’s most liked movies, and she always joked that we should make Gillian Holroyd’s tree.

If you have seen the movie, then you know the tree is made of concentric gold rings held together with gold macrame cord. Not an easy tree to emulate since the weight of it might be a problem.

So started the period of making different style trees for Christmas. My mother, years ago, made the Daily Oklahoman style section with a tree she created out of a large tumbleweed. She painted a good sizes tumbleweed white and then added tiny glass balls and beads.

We decided to spend one cold (very) at South Padre Island, Texas, mistakenly believing it would be warm. It wasn’t. We stayed at an older property called the Sand Dollar inn. It was next to the hotel we always stayed at for Spring Break. The Sand Dollar was a series of casitas with large windows in the front. Since we had no tree, my mother, father and I constructed one from driftwood, fishing net, and shells we either bought or collected. We made it triangular, and wrapped lights around it. In the dark, in front of the giant window, it looked like a real tree, until you really looked at it. Then it appeared as it the lights were floating in air.

The next tree, was modeled after a spiral one I’d seen at a local store called Flower City. My dad and I took a broom handle and placed a knob at one end. Then we painted it dark green. I took two grapevine wreaths and wrapped one of those realistic looking pine garlands all the way around the grapevine that had been cut apart so that the wreath spiralled.

Dad engineered the tree base by finding a motorized bottom that we hid in a flower pot. The motor turned the center pole. We hung the grapevine so that it spiraled around the center pole. We used some of our traditional ornaments such as the tree faerie, but most of the ornaments for this tree were special made by my dad and I.

He cut from a large piece of wood a bunch of stars and moons…half moons. We painted all of them bright metallic gold with a lacquer paint and clear gloss varnish. Dad placed a loop screw in the top of all of them, and I used flora wire to wire them to the grapevine. The tree had some of the first clear battery operated lights. It rotated beautifully and was a gorgeous 6ft Solstice tree. We had a lovely woodcut star on top of it too.

Merry Winter Solstice!